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Max’s Avengers

Thank you for visiting our team page! We are excited to "make strides and deliver hope" for families affected by preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.

Please join us for our walk!

The walk is on June 9th - at Fasola Park in Deptford, New Jersey at 10:00 AM!

Our team is grateful for your donations and for your help in spreading the word.

Want to join our team to make strides? Just click the "Join Our Team" button and register! Registration to attend the Promise Walk is free to all participants.

Here is our story, as written by Kevin McBride:

Maxwell Chance McBride was born 10 weeks early. His mom had been diagnosed with Preeclampsia and HELLP after a routine ultrasound showed an anomaly. We were asked to walk below/across 611 and the diagnosis was made in labor and delivery. Consequently, we had to have an emergency C-section. Me, Katie, and Kelly (Katie’s twin) sat there nervous as the OR was prepared. We were panicked. Katie didn’t even have her baby shower yet. My truck was still at work. My sneakers were still all in his room around the crib and bureau. His were too, including his infrared Air Max 90s - 1 of 6 pairs that both me and him owned. They were our favorite. Katie and Kelly had just put his animal decals on the wall. What the heck was happening? I needed to break the tension and show confidence. Throughout the pregnancy, I would play songs for Max on his mom's belly. Ben Kweller, Wilco, Chance the Rapper. These songs sandwiched my important life lesson speeches like: 1) The proper ranking of the Rocky movies 2) Why Goonies should replace any need to watch Sesame Street

His mom would karaoke for him in the car on her drive to work. I am a huge dork so I blast my headphones before I have to lead a meeting to fire myself up. I quickly switched to one of his Mom's favorite Pearl Jam songs Given To Fly on my iPhone and placed it by Max's ears. I was going to pump her and Max up for the surgery. We jammed until they wheeled Katie out. It worked. Mom and Max killed the delivery. I held Katie's hand and close-talked her behind a great and powerful Oz curtain as she shook from the medicine. Max came out 13 minutes later at 6:04 PM. Perfect to us. From there, we just got bad news after good news after bad news. A runaway roller coaster navigated by varying bed side manners. His esophagus was somehow not connected to his stomach. His trachea was somehow connected to his stomach. Wait forget all that - that's not it - he's fine. Wait yes it is IT actually. Huh? It was a fixable birth defect (EA/TEF) that I had never heard of before. I only thought we had to worry about him staying in a NICU and breathing correctly on his own (which he did immediately). So me and Max took an ambulance ride down to CHOP through the zoo, a football draft, and a relay event. Max stiff-armed a lion, shook a college linebacker, and jumped a hurdle with me on his back (with tears in my eyes). When I held him before his first surgery, he told new dad jokes to make me comfortable and put me at ease. He absolutely HAD this. He had all this under control for him, for mommy, for me, for the billion family members inhabiting the ronald mcdonald family waiting room.

Max fought like mommy did to break out of a different hospital 1 day early in order to trek all the way across an overly crowded city to get to him. She forgot about her fresh c-section wound and itchy rash, slapped some sirens on her wheelchair and rushed to hold her baby. Two warriors fighting for each other.

Unfortunately, a second surgery became necessary - a heart surgery - this time hours after his 2 lbs 4 oz body had endured the initial surgery. Max eventually passed away after this surgery in front of me and Katie but not before he assured me that he would be OK and that he actually had in fact completed his Ironman transition during the surgery. "Check out this arc reactor, Dad. With his thing, I can make a ton of people feel better. Sick kids, sick moms. I’ll even use it to comfort our whole family who might feel depressed about me or anything else. I promise."

Our "Moose" was loved and admired and still is now. It is our hope that this team of avengers can show everyone our boy Max as the badass cutie that he was. We are proud of him and we want to remind him of that everyday. We want to use him and the strength he inspires to help women who develop preeclampsia and HELLP during pregnancy or post partum (Katie was rushed back to hospital again for a second stay a couple days after Max's passing). We want him to help doctors find cure for preeclampsia and HELLP while also helping make pregnant women aware of the symptoms they can be a better advocate for themselves. Most importantly, I want him to do all this for his mommy because I know he would have done anything for her. Please help us honor our Moose. #MAXSTRONG